


Ouroboros Forever and One

by iblankedonmyname



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: AU, AU Apocalypse, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Apocalypse, Armageddon, Bible references, Crowley's Bentley (Good Omens), First Kiss, God Narrates, Illustrations, M/M, Mission From God, Multiple Worlds, Prequel, Revelations, The End of the World, Violence, angel fight, angry soft aziraphale, blues brothers crowley, cowboy aziraphale, hard reboot, idiocy drives the plot, no miracles allowed, soft people get pissed, suicide references
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-28
Updated: 2019-08-04
Packaged: 2020-07-23 09:50:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 16,764
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20006338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iblankedonmyname/pseuds/iblankedonmyname
Summary: An AU where the Apocalypse-Definitely-Did, Aziraphale is a cowboy and Crowley is on a mission from God to reboot the universe.“God gave you, a demon, a mission?” Aziraphale snaps his glass onto the table. “Millions of angels at Her disposal, and yet…” His eyes are sparkling again. It’s more refreshing than a glass of tequila in a waterless land. “You?” His eyes slip from Crowley’s toes up to the top of his head. “Well, I am certainly surprised.”





	1. Black Hat

**Author's Note:**

> Howdy there partner, I see you’ve ventured into a different part of the fandom than the pining fics. Now don’t get me wrong, I’ve been enjoying those romantic fics as much as the next feller, and there is no way this here fic could be written without some of those undertones, but this is a bit odder. This here is an AU where the apocalypse is in the process of happening and it ain’t great. There ain’t no tea in this (water is blood). There ain’t no gardens (the Earth is a desert). Ain’t even in London either (utterly annihilated). But Aziraphale is a bit like John Wayne and Crowley is half a Blues Brother (which one?). Both of em are still morons, so if you’re here for it, welcome. You’re among good company. Yee haw little doggies, yee haw.

This was attempt number infinity and one, and it still wasn’t right! The humans always get to the Day of Judgement, and just fail. _Just fail it._ Wiffle ball it. Completely. It all keeps coming down to the Antichrist. He’s not picking the _right_ solution to this conundrum. He’s not being _human_ enough with his decision. I haven’t put enough chance in place or I haven’t given him the fullest range of experiences. 

Maybe it’s his age? He is only eleven after all, but he can’t be any older than eleven! That’d give him time to become jaded, adult. Maybe next time I should redo all of humanity and leave out puberty. Oof, never mind, I tried it millions of attempts ago. The worlds before puberty got humans only as far as outside the garden before it became Lord of the Flies. Despite the insidious nature of _puberty_ , it is a requirement lest I want to backtrack, and I don’t. Regardless, what to change? What to change?! What _can_ I change? While I think on it, best get the ball rolling on the time-tested and true maneuver to restart the universe. Now where did I put that apple?

Thank G-, well Myself, I’ve always given myself clear goals. After all, who can get anything done without a firm and repeatable list of action items. Currently, the Apocalypse is in a specific moment during Revelations. The four horsemans’ rolls are over. Most humans destined for Heaven have been picked up already. The rest are marked by the beast on Earth awaiting passage into Hell. The Seven Trumpets have all been sounded, so we’re on to the Seven Bowls, the plagues that wipe the world clean. They are delivered from heaven by Angels, and are as so: bowl one is boils for those marked by the beast. Bowl two is the death of all sea creatures. Bowl three is all water turns to blood. Four is the sun burns the planet. Five is darkness. Six is Satan gathers the forces of evil for the last battle, and finally bowl seven is an earthquake that renders all mountains gravel. At the end of that, the war is fought and won, and the Angels toss the Antichrist into the Lake of Fire. Try to keep all this in mind. It’s not complicated. It’s just weird.

* * *

The planet is a saltine cracker. All the good-growing loam has dried to powder and blown into the stratosphere an untold amount of time ago. What is left is a cracked brick of sickly-yellow flats. There is nothing else but the crumbled cement structures, the blood-red sun stabbed into the dusty sky, and maybe a skeleton tree the texture and color of asphalt every few thousand miles. The horizon is the same color as the sky and ground. Sure, there is also the odd demon here or there. Some animals successfully converted to hellish stock, and the shambling, hollow corpses of once humans, now marked by the beast, but mostly this, empty and so brittle-dry. All the thermometers likely popped or errored-out eons ago. 

Serpentine eyes, the color of the world, meditate on the cracks in the ground. He has been falling into this pattern lately, where a texture is a decadence to him. Inside the crack, he can see the shade, and maybe a tiny drop of moisture lives in there, hidden from his sight. The ragged edge is a cliff. He could swan dive off into a deep blue pool. It would be as cool as a glacier. His mind hovers on the edge of manifesting a bottle of water into existence. It’s entirely within his reach, but he stops himself. Best not alert Hell to where he is. The ease in which he once would call impossible things into the world is another habit he needs to break. He pulls his wings tighter over his head.

This isn’t the first time he’s hyper fixated on a crack. There is so little to look at. If there was still time, he knows that he has wasted years looking at the strange wiggling shadows his wings cast, at the cellular shapes on a minuscule piece of petrified wood, at the white veins running through a granite stone. ‘This is unhealthy, Crowley,’ he chastises himself. ‘Go back down to Hell, at least there are things to look at down there.’ But he doesn’t want to go back to Hell. That’s a different kind of torture. He wonders if demons can lose their minds. He wonders if he already has. These cracks have the flavor of coffee with too much cream. Milky on top and espresso dark inside swirling. He thinks of ice cream. He thinks of vanilla on a cone with a flake. He thinks of those familiar colors, a familiar hand in a familiar park, but he swerves away from that thought. ‘Don’t go that way. That way only leads to pain.’ Within these cracks are the night sky he can’t see anymore. Inside, stars twinkle.

At some point, he is sure he hears something. It hurts. Everything hurts up here. At first it’s just sounds, but then garbled and wretched, the sounds become words. And the words, at first nonsensical, he begins to recognize. It is one word. It is his chosen name. It takes work mentally to find something to say back that would categorize as a response.

“Ngk.” It’s the only one he can manage.

“Crowley. I need you to do me a favor.”

He snaps his eyes away from the brutalized ground, and his black hairline pupils shrink to almost nothing. In that instant, all his vocabulary returns with a force. “Ah fuck no!”

* * *

He stumbles over his scaly feet. Being transported from one place to another was never this disorienting, but now nausea thunders through him. There is no point of reference in the absence of a clear horizon line. ‘Time to turn off that inner ear.’ He keeps falling into old habits up here.

In the distance, over the mirage, he sees wiggly shapes. He’s suddenly parched, and it’s not from lack of water. He hasn’t seen water since it all turned to blood and that must’ve been...well he’s not sure. It’s been one single day since the Apocalypse began. One, infinite day. 

He wanders toward the shapes, and one shape is beginning to approach him. Flickering over the mirage is a black horse and on it, a rider. They are gaining speed, barreling down on Crowley. The black shirt flares out into a pair of wings. The air becomes filled with the screeching sound of locusts swarming. Crowley reels back. He remembers fear. He is suddenly afraid for so many reasons.

He desperately squints through his glasses at the approaching figure. His hand slams into his brow, casting a sliver more of shade on his overtaxed eyes. “Aziraphale?” He rasps, but the approaching figure is odd, too fierce, and the black wings. The stature is right, the posture too, and slowly Crowley’s squint pays off, the face. “It is you isn’t it.” He’s never seen this expression before though, hard and cold. His once pool-blue eyes are on fire, _actual_ tongue-licking fire.

The angel bares down on him with his flaming sword lit. The horse rears, flaming hooves and flaming eyes. Crowley throws out his hands, “Aziraphale! It’s me!” 

The flaming sword is fumbled and falls. The reigns are snapped. The kicking hooves jerk down ungracefully to hard dirt. The hell horse staggers forward, gnawing madly at it’s bit. Neither of them want to move. When Aziraphale finally speaks, his voice is pained. “Crowley?” It’s low and shaking and it hurts. Everything hurts. Crowley is frozen.

“Can it really be you?” He slides off his horse, and walks so tentatively forward. His hand is out as if preparing to part a curtain. “Crowley? Not a trick?”

“Aziraphale.” Crowley stumbles toward him. He’s unable to formulate a sentence. Of all people, he should be asking if the angel is real, and not a trick, not a ghost. Up until recently, he thought the angel was dead. Burned to ashes in his bookstore before the start of Armageddon. He curses himself for not looking longer, harder. He’s a hideous coward. He’s choking on his own tongue, haggard and voiceless, by the time Aziraphale’s outstretched fingers press into his collarbone. They jerk back at first before sliding up his cheek. Crowley’s hand moves of it’s own will to cover it. Aziraphale’s hand is real.

“You are really here.” Aziraphale’s flaming eyes extinguish with a blink. Crowley’s voice is a jagged garble. He can’t look into those absolutely-sinfully-decadent blue eyes without feeling obscenely guilty. When was the last time he had seen blue? The texture of them squeezing around a shadow of a pupil. Blue is a forbidden color on this yellow bone planet. He looks away feeling his own eyes prick.

Aziraphale withdraws his hand. He’s absolutely hollow. That touch was an indulgence he had craved millennia before, but he can’t decide if he enjoyed it. Everything he ever enjoyed in the past has been weaponized against him. Each desire transformed into a little needle, a reminder of what can never be again, pin-cushioned thickly into his body. He loved so much, and each love, a knife. Crowley is the biggest knife of all, alive and well in front of him. But Aziraphale has learned to revere weapons. Keep the blade sharp. Don’t let them drop on the ground. This is a comfort. He doesn’t need to breath, but he does. It’s ragged.

“I thought you were dead.” The knife speaks. Aziraphale aches.

“Oh?” Aziraphale thinks ‘Are we not living death right now? Is this not the picture of death? Look at the state of things.’

“I thought you had been burned in your bookshop.” 

Aziraphale aches even more. He had a bookshop once. He laughs dryly. “Everything burned, Crowley, either with the first trumpet or the fourth bowl.”

Crowley shifts his gaze back to Aziraphale, pinned by the ever seeking blue eyes. “I mean before. Before all of this. The day it began, but _before_ it did. I thought Hell set fire to your bookshop while you were inside.” He’s struggling with each word, constructing sentences like a vulture picking at carrion. 

Aziraphale’s face softens minutely, but he catches himself and it snaps back to stoney. He has his own weapons, and he collects his flaming sword from where he dropped it. “Ah yes, the day you went to Alpha Centauri. What brought you back?”

“I...” He’s wide eyed behind his glasses. That was right, that was their last conversation before Aziraphale disappeared. “I didn’t go.” His voice is dismal. “There wasn’t a reason to go there anymore.”

Aziraphale hurts all over. He glances at the sun. It’s the same color as Crowley’s hair. He can’t forget now. It’s in front of him. “How about we move inside.” He whistles to his mount, who trots over.

“Inside? Like Inside-inside? Well, yeah.”

* * *

“No. No. No. No. Not ever. Fuck you.” Crowley is speed walking. His black blazer and tie flapping in the hurried wind he’s making. His legs are scale-slick.

“Crowley, you can’t run from me.”

“No fucking way. I will never do anything for you. Not after what you did to me. Not after what you did to this planet. Not after what you did…” He catches himself on the last part.. “Not ever. Get the picture. Leave me alone.”

He is being pursued by a light unlike the hot sun glaring down on him. This one is like the dawn, welcoming and pleasant. It is a forgotten warmth. He hates it. He wants to rip it to pieces. The light is, of course, God, completely unmistakable, and the light is asking him to do It a _favor_.

“You will listen eventually.”

Crowley spins on his heel, dust kicks up. He jabs a finger at the light. “You have enough _angels_ to do _you_ favors. I’m a _demon_. You’re doing, remember? Not me. Not ever me.”

“If you promise to do my task, I will give you help. I’ll take you to Aziraphale.”

His face collapses in a soundless howl before he’s screaming at the light. He screams in rage, and in relief. God knows. God always knows.

* * *

The petrol station is beyond weathered, but the reinforced concrete has bent to no wind, fire, or earthquake. They had walked quietly through a herd of helhests to get here. Aziraphale patted the ones that approached him with a certain semblance of care. 

“Honestly, I expected something more.” Crowley squiggles his hand through the air in the shape of a mansion with perhaps fountains and palms and grapes on a plate.

“Can’t exactly miracle up a villa complete with impluvium, right now, can I?” Aziraphale sulks, and points upwards weakly as if that explains it all. “Maybe you…?” He looks at him expectantly, eyes glittering.

Crowley bites his cheek. The gnawing sensation to give in and recreate the hanging gardens of Babylon for Aziraphale just to see him smile is back, but then they’d have to contend with Hell. “No can do, angel. If I miracle anything, I’ll ping on Hell’s radar. They’d be up here faster than it takes to spit.”

“Ah. Well then yes, this is it.” The sparkle of Aziraphale’s eyes ashen, Crowley anguishes to see it go. It would do no good to have a _piscina_ for only a few seconds before he gets dragged down to his superiors. He’s going to have to resist responding to Aziraphale. These old habits again causing problems.

Despite not being a villa, the shelter is blissfully dark and noticeably cooler inside. Exiting the constant heat elicits a relieved sigh from both of them. Once Crowley has chased all the spots from his eyes, of which there are many, he sees a sparse room with a table and chairs, a small bookshelf overloaded with books, and a window sheltering a cactus. His hands hover over it, wanting to touch but unable to without drawing blood on an aggressive spine. He thinks of blood, and of water. “How do you water it?”

Aziraphale plops his cowboy hat on a bent metal hook, and runs his hand through his bone white curls. The extinguished sword he places on the table. He glances hesitantly at Crowley. “Does time exist anymore? I might never need to water it.”

Crowley can only nod. Flashes of memory worm their way back, an entire room of green leaves, jungle plants, a plastic mister filled with water. His fingers, eager to touch something, anything, drift over the top edges of the collected books instead. Each one is crispy from the dry air, but still that familiar course edge of paper makes him draw a sharp breath. “And these books? How?”

“People hid books in all kinds of places. I would know. Most of those came from fireproof lock boxes of some sort. I bring them here when I find them.” 

Crowley’s inside are rolling with three-fold relief. One for shade. Two for the multitudes of familiar sensations, places to rest his weary eyes. And three, beyond what he felt he deserved, Aziraphale. He’s alive and he’s here and he’s, for the most part, unchanged, even after everything that’s happened. He’s _still_ collecting all manner of things and sheltering them despite the odds. Yes indeed, very like Aziraphale. But his eyes are so different. They are withdrawn, more focused on the distance than before, less mobile too. The sparkle in them dimmed, and at times, completely absent, like there is nothing in front of him that brings him joy. Those eyes are very unlike Aziraphale despite how blue they remain. Other things have changed as well. “And you’re a cowboy?”

A familiar huff. (Crowley’s chest flutters.) “It’s a _style_. It’s decent for deserts and tending horses.” His hands flit over his arms as if to pat the dust off. “And you’re one to talk, you aren’t even wearing trousers.”

Crowley remembers what it is to smile. “Well, angel, I am not trying to impress anyone. Besides I’m a snake. Scales are decent for deserts. Likely better than that cotton weave you’re wearing.” He flicks his forked tongue out. “Why the helhests? Aren’t they a bit yaknow...demon-y”

Aziraphale wants to snip ‘I’ve learned a thing or two about shepherding demons. Lots of experience with it.’ But how quickly the two of them have slipped into bickering causes a jolt of pain to shoot through him instead. Crowley had called him ‘angel’ too. All this time, and Crowley has the audacity to stroll out of the wastes like he missed him, like he had been looking for him for time immemorial. He schools his expression. “They are useful. They are similar to real horses. Gives me something to do.”

Crowley’s eyebrows perk up over his glasses. “Are you looking for something to do?”

“It’s the end of the world. If I were in heaven right now, I’d be busy using this time to make ready for the war. Instead I’m here.” He gestures outside, actual hell on Earth. 

Crowley frowns. His guilt is back. He can’t imagine why he didn’t look for Aziraphale longer. He doesn’t understand why he assumed the angel was capital D dead and not just discorporated, but he can’t bring himself to boldly ask what exactly _did_ happen. Nothing had gone the right way that day. “I...I’m sorry. Sorry I wasn’t here.” 

Aziraphale pinches the bridge of his nose. He hasn’t had a conversation in so long, and Crowley, here, reachable, audible. He’s itchy. There is a desire to pace and rail around the space shouting. Pulling his hair out. Rolling on the ground. He wants to throw a fit, to be a raving lunatic. But he has something better and he is pleased he has kept it untouched. He strides to the hatch on the floor, and throws it open. It creaks so loudly that Crowley winces. “If we are going to keep up like this, best drink something.” He pulls out a dusty and scorch-stained clear bottle. “Can I interest you in tequila?”

Crowley instantly salivates, and snatches the offered bottle. It is crystal clear. Liquid sloshes luxuriously within. Crowley isn’t sure how he manages to keep from sobbing. “This isn’t blood?!”

“Thankfully no. Revelations doesn’t mention what happens to liquor. It was an unexpected loophole.” He plucks the bottle from Crowley’s clutches, procures two glasses, and pours generously. He sips generously as well, and waits for Crowley to taste it. Crowley drinks and noticeably lounges deeper into his chair, sighing. The sharp liquor coaxing wetness back into his parched mouth. Aziraphale tugs his bib shirt down, and clears his throat. “Now, tell me Crowley, why are you suddenly here?”

Crowley cradles the precious glass of liquor. Like Azirphale, he never thought he’d see alcohol again. He brings it slowly, so slowly to his mouth. His mouth hasn’t stopped salivating. Just like Aziraphale to give him a drink and then ask an exceptionally challenging question. A question with multiple answers too. So many in fact he has the urge to slurp the whole glass down and ask for seconds, maybe thirds in quick succession. ‘Aziraphale,’ He would have started, ‘you see, I love you, and if I hadn’t been chained to a desk in Hell after I thought you died to stamp documents of admission for eternity, maybe I would’ve found you sooner. Maybe I’d still be trying to convince you to run away with me. But no, no, instead, instead…’ And that seems like a more plausible place to start. All the words that come after that _instead_ , so he begins there. “You aren’t going to believe this, but…”

* * *

“You want me to what?” Crowley holds an apple. It’s odd in his hands, as red as his hair, as the sun. An apple tree hasn’t existed since the first cleansing fires. Its meer presence a paradox, a ripe, fleshy body, unrotten, untouched by grime. Part of him hungers for a bite. 

“Find the Antichrist and get him to eat that apple.”

“Yes yes I get that, but the universe part?” He runs a thumb over the apple’s perfect, taunt skin. The presence of the apple screams, ‘I shouldn’t exist. Don’t look at me too long. I’ll rot your brain.’

“The universe needs to be reset.” It is a fact, but Crowley is incapable of accepting it as infallible, even coming directly from God.

“And you can’t just do that yourself? Right now? Without all this trouble? What does that even mean?” Crowley air quotes with his fingers. “Resetting the universe?”

“Agree to it and I will send you to Aziraphale.”

Crowley sighs. As if he possibly had a choice at all. He places the apple in his blazer pocket. The strange bulge ruins the coat’s silhouette. He frowns. ‘What a drag.’ He pats the pocket like it holds the keys to his Bentley. It’s mostly for show. “Fine, yes. I’ll get this apple to the Antichrist. Get his nice beast-y fangs in it. You could’ve made it something he’d actually want to eat though? Kids aren’t fond of apples.”

God snorts. It takes the sass almost out of Crowley. “Oh and do it quickly. The sixth and seventh bowl follow the fifth swiftly.”

“You’re giving me a deadline!? A deadline when time literally does not exist!?” Crowley hisses.

“There is always a deadline.” 

And the light representing God is gone, and he’s somewhere else entirely. Aziraphale runs him down with a demon horse and a flaming sword moments later.

* * *

“God gave you, _a demon_ , a mission?” Aziraphale snaps his glass onto the table. “Millions of angels at Her disposal, and yet…” His eyes are sparkling again. It’s more refreshing than a glass of tequila in a waterless land. “You?” His eyes slip from Crowley’s toes up to the top of his head. “Well, I am certainly surprised.”

Crowley is absolutely reveling in delight. Before the mission felt like a lame chore, but now, with Aziraphale actually paying some positive attention to him, it might just be fun. It might be just like old times. “I was shocked that you weren’t picked. The only angel left on Earth and all.” His smirk is playful at first

But his words must have stung, and Aziraphale’s face shutters. “Oh well no, of course it wouldn’t be me.” He drains his tequila to hide his quivering lip, and pours another hurriedly. “I’ve become a bit of a fallen angel. Not officially, mind you, but I’ve done some things. I’m sure if God really wanted to She’d have plenty of reasons to...” His quaking hand covers his mouth, and he looks away.

Crowley stiffens like he was slapped. Behind his wayfarers, his eyes fixate on Aziraphale’s decidedly and wrongly black wings. They widen. “Oh no, angel, no. You are doing the best you can. I...I didn’t mean it like that.” His fingers crawl across the dirty table and press their tips to Aziraphale’s glass-gripped hand. It’s the smallest touch Crowley can manage. If there was more tequila in him he might have stood and grabbed the entire wrist, wrenched the hand covering Aziraphale’s mouth away, and maybe pressed their lips together. Said ‘I’m sorry’ a thousand times to the inside of Aziraphale’s pleasing pink mouth, but he can’t and he wouldn’t. This is an old dance. He realizes that old habits had returned along with their similar desires. 

Crowley swallows instead. “Everything is wrong isn’t it. It’s the biggest cock up that could ever be committed, this Armageddon business.”

Aziraphale’s eyes have slid back to the table focusing sharply on Crowley’s touch. When was the last time anyone had touched him before this recent appearance of Crowley. He thinks back to the day that started it all. He had missed the bombs, but so had many people, many frightened people. He shivers, and stands up abruptly. He wanders over to the window, hands clasped behind his back. One thumb stroking the location of where Crowley had touched him. “Yes,” He quietly agrees to the baked yellow desert outside. “This mission from God, you could have been hallucinating, you know?”

Crowley’s frown looks like it was cut in with a blunt tool. He shoots the tequila and peels his eyes away from Aziraphale to focus on the texture of the table. He’s a hunched, thin demon crouched in the dark. He pulls out the apple from his pocket and places it in front of him. It’s all the proof he needs. “I wasn’t hallucinating.”

Aziraphale stares at the apple. It shouldn’t be there, so red and impossible, so fresh and impossible. It is beguiling how untarnished it is. How could the Antichrist possibly resist such a nostalgic treat? Aziraphale closes his eyes and thinks about his teeth in its ripe skin, about the likely snap of the fruit tearing, of the juice of it, tart and sweet. His eyes open again, but this apple isn’t for him. 

Crowley sees he made his point and continues on unmoving, unblinking, “I think we are supposed to go together. On this mission, I mean.”

Aziraphale’s eyes flicker. But then he looks at his small stack of books, each one he’s read a thousand times. Each book organized and cleaned carefully as often as he can. He looks at the cactus, so rare and special. The dirt it’s housed in even more so. At the hell horses all brought together slowly, communing with each other outside. At this precious, shaded shelter he’s discovered with a small underground latch stocked with non-perishables. It’s all so little, too little. He then carefully considers leaving all these priceless items he’s found behind, and something twists inside him. It’s raw and jagged. He’s spent too long assembling this scrap of life to abandon it. Abandon it for what anyway? A false errand? From the very entity that made all of this happen? A desperately challenging slog with equally awful odds? “I’d rather not.” He says to the window.

Crowley can’t say he’s surprised, but he doesn’t want to think much about anything right now. He has never seen Aziraphale react like that, like he’s haunted. Many things had indeed changed, and he wasn’t entirely prepared for them. So “oh, okay,” is all he can manage. He slips the apple back into his pocket and flicks dust on the table. An errant particle pings against the tequila bottle. “Want to just get drunk then? Like old times sake?”

Aziraphale sighs loudly, but the gaze he brings back to Crowley at the table is one of relief. “Yes, I believe I do.”

A sound bellows from heaven similar to the sound of a spoon hitting a champagne glass but in slow motion and growing in intensity. Crowley has the suspicion that everywhere on the planet this tone can be heard. Aziraphale throws himself to the door, eyes up. Crowley follows in a rush. The sound is reminiscent of a jet approaching the sound barrier. The wind has increased and has begun wiping sand into their eyes and mouths. A star of light floats over the planet but doesn’t fall.

“What is this?” Crowley shouts over the sound.

“It’s the fifth bowl!” Aziraphale responds in kind. 

“Oh shit!” The sound stops, which makes Crowley’s exclamation booming in the sudden silence.

The floating star disappears and from where it once floated leeches black like ink dumped on wet parchment. The yellow sky thirstily pulls at it, and the blackness of the spot grows and deepens, casting a strange liquid shadow over the Earth. Crowley watches Aziraphale’s face disappear in black as the darkness swells over the sun. He misses it immediately, so he strikes his fingers like a match and a flame appears in his palm. This isn’t a miracle, he can always choose to be a being wreathed in flame. He chooses not to most of the time. Body decisions aren’t impossibilities, he’s an occult thing after all. Aziraphale stares blankly into the fire.

Crowley looks away to the black world. The heat continues to radiate from the baked earth despite the lack of sun. The darkness is claustrophobic. Only the flaming eyes of the horses shrinking smaller and smaller in the distance prove that there is a landscape there at all. “A long time ago,” He starts and swallows, “I asked you to come with me. You told me no. That there was nowhere to go. Now there is somewhere to go. Come with me.”

Aziraphale peels his eyes up. The fire dances in his corneas. “How can you possibly believe we can do anything about this? The challenges are insurmountable.”

“What are the alternatives? Stay here in this pitch black hovel? Wait for the end surrounded by whatever we’ve scraped together in the dark? This is a real divine mission, Aziraphale. Not some garbage Gabriel and his crew have cooked up. However you’re feeling about yourself, you can’t just bow out of this. How can you discard your duties so lightly?” Crowley has always been good at finding loopholes in Aziraphale’s self-narrative. He’s not a lesser demon after all, he’s the genuine article. He wishes that the words were less sharp, and ultimately, that he could’ve stayed here with Aziraphale drinking forever instead. Even at the end of the world, he remains a puppet to the forces that be. 

Anger pools in Aziraphale’s chest, but it’s not directed at Crowley. It’s so vague and directionless. He grits his teeth as if he has been fed a particularly bitter tonic, because in truth, Crowley is right. If even one of the true fallen can be tasked by the Lord Almighty Herself, then his current sense of self doesn’t alter his responsibilities to upholding the Greater Good. To turn down Crowley would be falling from his high moral standards, and that’s unacceptable, even for a renegade angel with two feet on the land of the Beast.

All the anger disperses, “Let me get some things.” And he departs into the dark interior of the petrol station. Moments later his flaming sword ignites and he wields it around the small space, illuminating this and that corner. He exits the station with a leather bag, his hat, his sword and the recapped bottle of tequila. The thrust to his chin determined. He whistles twice into the darkness, and two pairs of glowing eyes trundle over through the dark until two helhests appear on the edge of Crowley’s cast light. Aziraphale mounts one with an ease that only comes from endless practice. “Where to then?”

Crowley smirks but inwardly he’s congratulating himself. “The Lake of Fire. That’s where he’ll be. The Antichrist.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Right...Crowley isn't wearing pants. He has snakey scaley legs. Why? Because at some point I went on Tumblr, and someone was griping that Crowley should've had chicken legs in the garden of Eden and that the show creators were cowards. It was a joke of course. It references that no one is sure if book!Crowley is wearing shoes. But I laughed so hard thinking about crowfeet!Crowley, I decided that Crowley would say no-pants-rights at the end of the world and just look a bit more demon-y. He's still wearing a blazer, fedora, glasses and tie though because while he may not be wearing pants, he wants to look good.
> 
> As for Aziraphale....well it's an aesthetic choice. There are so many pieces of media (especially movies) that reference angels in deserts, and I wanted to play on that a little bit. I'm not sure where the idea came from, maybe because it's the antithesis of British Gentleman to me, and it snow balled into him being John Wayne-like, because why not. I have a bit of an obsession with people that cycle between woefully soft and righteously angry, so there is a lot of that in here. I love him quite a bit more after writing him like this. I hope you do too.
> 
> I've called the demon horses helhests because it's one nice simple word that sounds pleasant. A helhest is a three legged dead horse from, if I remember properly, Norse legend. The horses in this story aren't three legged nor are they Norse. I'm just being sloppy.


	2. We're on a Mission from God

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> note: suicide mentions

I have a crazy idea, but I’m positive that this time there can be no wiggle room. Everyone is sick of this outcome, myself included. I’m making an addition. 

Her name doesn’t matter much, but she’ll be really excellent at predictions, so excellent in fact, that she will _never_ be wrong. I’m breaking my ass with this idea. She’ll have a family that extends after her death and she’ll have the foresight (it’s okay to laugh with me, just not at me) to write all her visions into a book. There has to be only one book somehow and that book will be passed down within her family to keep the focus narrow. Otherwise it’ll be an absolute disaster. Humans gobble up predictions. They use them to do all kinds of outlandish things. Look what happened with Revelations after all. I must’ve been on a bender when I made the end of the world. It’s grotesque. I’d try to redo that too if I knew that it wouldn’t break anything, better not. Don’t fix what isn’t broken is my motto. It may not be pretty but it works. The most makeshift solution I’ve ever cobbled together. 

* * *

Crowley spends a little longer than he would’ve liked scrambling onto the back of the helhest. Aziraphale has patiently taken over the light bearer duty with his sword so Crowley can at least use two hands, but as soon as Crowley is astride the beast, he spots that Aziraphale is smiling at him smugly. “A little too satisfied with yourself, I see.”

Aziraphale hurumphs but the smile doesn’t diminish. He clicks his tongue, at first Crowley thinks it’s meant for him, but the horse responds instantly. He plods off, flaming sword held like a torch. “Come along then.”

The helhest is bridled with the simplest braid of frayed scrap looped between it’s skeletal jaw up to the back of its neck. Crowley hates riding, but it’s not something one forgets. He ribs the beast lightly and leads it around, catching up to Aziraphale quickly. He looks back a moment at the ruin, sliding back into the dark like a slippery sea eel retreating into a hole. The impossibly dark world is eerie. He’s spooked. “How do you know that this is the right way?”

Aziraphale’s brows draw together. “You’re telling me you can’t feel that?”

Crowley sniffs the air and the scent of evil points an arrow. It says, ‘I’m obviously this way.’ He wonders when his constant embarrassment will end. “Oh, well of course I feel it.” He hadn’t put the sensation of an all sucking, evil black hole together with that of the hell mouth.

Aziraphale squints at Crowley, but doesn’t comment on his misplaced ability to equate the obvious. He settles for “Can you open this?” It’s the tequila bottle again. He hefts the sword in his hand as if to show he can’t manage both. “It’s going to be a long trip, so we might as well.”

Crowley grips the cap and spins it off. He takes a sip. Tequila was never his favorite but now it’s ambrosia. The sharp biting taste gets between his teeth and gums, an appropriate feeling, acidic. He passes it back to Aziraphale, who does the same. Sip. Grimace. They trundle off into the silent, still, vacuum of nothing that is the Earth. 

Many finger widths into the bottle later, Crowley is slippery on the horse, loose limbed. He had switched to flame bearing duty, since Aziraphale had started dropping hints that his arm was tired. Crowley notes he looks drearier now than he did sober. Aziraphale catches him looking, and grumbles, drunkenly straightening his posture. “What are you smiling at?”

“Jussst good to see you is all. Can’t get over it.” 

In the flickering fire, Aziraphale appears pinker suddenly. It’s an improvement on his strange apocalyptic pallor. His voice lowers and he looks in stages away, “It’s good to see you too.” He swallows, “of course.” 

But Aziraphale recognizes that he isn’t completely sure if he is happy to see Crowley. After so long, he feels like a different person, a bit wretched really. He wishes there were stars out. That would be normal for a sky like this. If he could, he would consider Alpha Centauri at this moment. As it is now, he has no clue which direction the cluster sits in. Does the Earth currently have a North and a South? What of the magnetic poles all together? He clears his throat and turns back to Crowley. “So no Alpha Centauri for you then? I’d thought this entire time you were just sitting out there, blissfully unaffected, thumbing your nose at me.”

Crowley slips his glasses down his nose to peer at Aziraphale. “How can you possibly think I’d go there alone? To what, twiddle my thumbs? Kick space rock around? I thought you had died, Aziraphale. I didn’t want to do anything anymore.” He slips his glasses back up. It is best to not show too much. He wants the angel to know he is genuine, but in his head he continues, ‘I wasn’t sure I wanted to be alive anymore either.’ But Aziraphale wouldn’t have liked to hear that.

The angel has an inkling that Crowly is hinting at exactly what he wants to hide. He searches Crowley’s body for any sign of self harm, and settles on Crowley’s chewed lip. There was a moment during the thick of the great sorting that Aziraphale sat down and considered what it would take to end his life. It took him a long time to stand up again, but he’s glad he did. Otherwise he wouldn’t be here, thrilled with this new bit of knowledge. He can’t resist the pull to reach out this time, the subject matter is too heavy to stop himself, so he touches Crowley’s forearm. The tendons quickly constrict, but Aziraphale keeps his hand still until they relax. He hopes his voice sounds earnest. “Could you tell me what did happen?”

Crowley stares at Aziraphale through his glasses. He is suddenly very aware that it’s ridiculous he’s wearing them when the sun is gone forever. ‘I’ll tell you anything.’ He wonders at the hand. Instead he gnaws his lip. He could write a book with every phrase he has wanted to utter to Aziraphale. It’d be a dull book, but a full one. “Yeah, I’ll tell you. Some of it you already know. It’s not complicated.”

* * *

Crowley learned about the upcoming Apocalypse on the Wednesday before it happens. He’d been called in for the official staff meeting. He casually kicked up his feet on the back of Hastur’s chair and wiggled it. When it was announced that the Hellhound had been released and named, he paled abruptly, excused himself, like he needed to raise his damnation quota before the end, and got back to Earth to call Aziraphale. They got drunk and Crowley convinced the angel that he planned to thwart the Apocalypse in favor of Evil and Aziraphale should thwart him. This is information that Aziraphale hurries through. He was an active participant in these parts.

Crowley had trapped the Antichrist in Heathrow with a broken engine light, and miracled another boy of similar age to accidentally board a flight to Megiddo, a move completely inspired by the ticket swap in Home Alone 2: Lost in New York. It didn’t help to foil the Apocalypse. It only tipped off Hastur and Ligur that something was up. When he finally got back to the bookshop, it was on fire, and Aziraphale was gone. He ended up in a bar, drinking bottle after bottle of Talisker. When the bombs came, he was already unconscious. It was both the most and least painful discorporation he had ever experienced. 

“Late as always.” Crowley manifested bodiless in front of Beelzebub. “Get to your post. We are hours away from the end. What are you doing loafing around on Earth still anyway?

Separated from a body, Crowley was completely sober, and it was rackingly difficult to stand without any substance dulling his all encompassing misery. He curled into himself on the muddy floor. “I don’t care. I don’t care about the war. I don’t care about anything anymore.”

“Sounds like you’re a demon.” Beelzebub grumbled loudly, “A demon in a great mental state for cutting down angels. Come on, get your sword out. Join the bloody ranks.”

He sniffed and regretted it, the floor smelled like shit. “I’m not fighting. In your stupid war. Ever. The Earth was one of the best things that has ever existed” His sob became a hacking cough. The black mold can’t be good for anyone, demon included. “And now it’s going to be blasted to smithereens for no reason whatsoever.”

Beelzebub crouched down to Crowley’s level. “You feckless loser, if you won’t fight, I’ll give you a different job. Hastur reported you killed Ligur. We’re a bit tied up at the moment, but you’re court martialed. Fight and I might reconsider how far into eternity your trial will be.”

Crowley felt like a worm. He hadn’t a bone in his body left to fight. What was the point anymore. He wistfully thought that maybe on Earth there was a tartan thermos full of holy water for him this time. A very human thought, demons aren’t capable of suicide. He hissed at Beelzebub. “Leave me alone." 

“With pleazzzure.” Lord Beelzebub blinked slowly and Crowley was transported to an uncomfortable swivel chair in another part of Hell. A desk plaque marked his new position as ‘Reception’. A thick chain shackled his ankle to a desk leg. He put his face down on the table’s surface, covered his head in his arms, and sobbed until he couldn’t anymore.

* * *

Crowley catches a glimpse of Aziraphale’s expression, whose face is hovering in the firelight, dark and empathetic. He tsks. “Don’t look at me like that. I shouldn’t have assumed you were dead. It was dumb of me. I don’t deserve your pity.” 

Aziraphale opens his mouth, but then is startled by something moving. 

Into the ring of glowing firelight, a human appears, followed by another and another. They are trudging in the same direction as Crowley and Aziraphale. The helhests either ignore them or nip sharply at the ones immediately in their path. Numbly the shambling husks move away. Humans used to come in such an arrangement of colors, shapes, and sizes, now they are all the same, stone washed with abrasives until every single one is bone thin, gray, burnt, and wounded. Eyes blinded white, heads tilted up towards Heaven, 666 smote into their foreheads, all are muttering obscenities and all are destined for Hell as soon as the war ends. Crowley forgot where he was in his story looking at this small handful of the damned. Humanity distilled to bone meal.

“I guess this will be the norm until the Lake then?” He shimmies his legs up on the helhest. Even the thought of grazing the sunken fleshy masses as they pass him makes his skin goosebump.

On the horizon is a line of orange light. It’s been getting brighter as they approach it, but they are many hundreds of miles away. “Yes, it’ll actually get more and more crowded as we get closer.”

“Terrific.” Crowley mutters.

The glimpse Aziraphale gives Crowley once again is full of concern. “How’d you get out of Hell? How’d you get back to Earth?”

Crowley puffs out his chest and sputters. “Well, eventually my head cleared a little. I certainly didn’t want to be there. I’d rather be elsewhere and miserable then tied to a desk and miserable. I realized no one was watching me, and that my desk was equipped with all manner of office supplies, so I picked the lock. Walked out of Hell. Easy peasy.”

Aziraphale gapes at him.

“Everyone is busy and distracted at the moment. I may be court martialed but no demon worth their salt is going to want to babysit me on the cusp of the deciding battle. Hell isn’t exactly organized.”

Aziraphale purses his lips.

“I only wished I realized sooner. Depression is not exactly helpful is it? Made everything muddy. Spent a good time up here just cooking under the heat, losing my mind.”

Aziraphale makes a sound. “Crowley, I...I’m sorry. I doubted you. I thought you had left…” His eyes lower to the ground. “And didn’t look back.”

“I should’ve never said that to you, angel. I wasn’t in my right-fucking-mind.” Crowley snaps without any real heat, sick to death of himself. “I can’t believe you’ve been here, dealing with this fucking shit, thinking that _that_ was the last thing I wanted to say to you.”

“Don’t...I...I said we weren’t _even_ friends. That I didn’t like you.” He looks down at his hands. Without direction, his fingers have tangled tightly in the bridle. He unwinds them carefully willing himself to stop fidgeting, this was important. “And that’s completely untrue. I’ve spent a long time down here…” And he realizes that while Crowley is from what seems like a lifetime ago, ever since his recent arrival, every burden Aziraphale has carried has been soothed in some way. He can’t bear not to look at him, so he halts his horse and turns. “And...and.”

Crowley wonders if this is _it._ If he has waited six thousand years and then some into the apocalypse to have Aziraphale admit now, that there is something more between them. He did just admit that he lost all hope in the world when he thought Aziraphale died. Maybe that was the key here. He straightens his spine from the horse-riding slump he has settled into. ‘Try and look a little heroic, you slouch,’ he thinks. He pulls his wings back.

Aziraphale inhales tightly through his nose, steeling himself. “And I could be wrong here but,” Crowley’s eyebrows are practically in his hairline. “I rather care about you, and I think you care about me too.” The ending of that sentence changes to a higher pitch. He’s not sure if it’s a question or a statement. 

“Well yeah. Yeah Aziraphale I’d agree that I care about you _a lot_.”

“Good, because I enjoy you...your company. More than an angel should I suppose. Not that I’m an excellent example. What with all the recent questioning that led me here. Maybe you’re my best friend..? Or...” He’s blathering, but he reaches out deftly and pats Crowley’s scaly thigh as if everything is understood perfectly between them.

And in some part of Crowley’s mind, ‘yes, oh thank whoever _yes._ ” That touch on his skin is flooding into his body like the first season’s rain on a dried riverbed. He traps Aziraphale’s hand against his body lest it decides to flit away. His thumb slips over each individual knuckle. He hopes that gesture about covers it.

However, the other part of his brain, the part that leads him into trouble, that turns him away from the simplicity of agreeing and leaning into it, is nibbling at one of Aziraphale’s phrases. He can’t let it rest. “You? Questioning? What did actually happen? I mean, at the bookshop. How did you get discorporated? Why are you here?”

Aziraphale doesn’t remove his lidded eyes from Crowley’s grazing hand but he puffs out his cheeks. He expected they’d get to this eventually, but it doesn’t make it any easier. “Well,” He begins within a single blown-out sigh. “It was mostly my mistake.”

* * *

Witchfinder Sergeant Shadwell had a death wish. He was striding about the bookshop, waving lighters, and striking bells. Aziraphale had only met with him in person a few times, but he recognized him by his surly voice and brutish mannerisms. Despite his nonsensical accusations, Aziraphale wasn’t going to let the poor man die stepping into his summoning circle. It was really quite accidental that he blindly stepped backwards into the charged symbol himself. Any other moment in history, this wouldn’t have been an insurmountable problem, despite the paperwork, but today was the day of the Apocalypse. It was doubly unfortunate that his discorporation sent him right to his celestial supervisor, Gabriel. 

They exchanged the normal salutations, but Aziraphale was unable to curtail his nerves in front of the Archangel like he had successfully done for six thousand years. He had just got off the phone with the Metatron, had a run in with some bad angels, and perhaps lost his, at the time, unrecognized best friend. He was feeling anything but peachy keen. So now was not the greatest moment for Gabriel to push the issue of his 1. lack of body, 2. lack of sword, and 3. relations with the Demon Crowley.

“Principality Aziraphale, you’re late. You are missing a part of your kit,” Gabriel gestured to two angels behind him, who walked quickly behind Aziraphale and grasped his biceps. “and I’ve seen some concerning evidence that you’ve been interacting with the Demon Crowley. Now I apologise for the guards, but I’d like to hear an explanation.”

Panic burned through Aziraphale, and with the fires as white hot as they currently were, it was a miracle he didn’t doubled in on himself and wheezed. His anxiety had never reached these heights before. It was so tremendously high, his body wasn’t capable of expressing itself properly. Aziraphale blinked. “Ah yes. Yes, the Demon Crowley and I sometimes speak.”

Gabriel’s brow peaked. It read as aggressively skeptical. “Oh? And what do you speak about?”

“He is sometimes receptive to the forces of Good.” It was not a lie. In the whiteout that was internal Aziraphale, he imagined Crowley back in heaven raspberrying at every angel on a hoverboard. He giggled nervously, and in turn, Gabriel scowled.

“That’s it. That’s your excuse? I mean that’s a lapse of judgement to the extreme, and it’s never been included in any of your reports, which strikes me as an attempt at subterfuge.” His expression kept darkening, becoming sharper, intensifying. “It’s indecent for an angel and a demon to regularly converse, and in public no less! But...but now isn’t the time for a full interrogation.”

Aziraphale snapped out of his panic momentarily. His mind was on full alert, and suddenly he remembered he _had_ coping mechanisms. He was desperate to fiddle with something. “O-okay then.”

“Now the other matter, you can’t fight in this war without a sword and a body. What’s your excuse there?”

“I don’t want to fight a war.” It was weird to wrap his mouth around these words, but he had never felt so certain before, especially with a decision so clearly against Gabriel. He had the unsettling feeling of a mouse cornered by a large feral cat, but he couldn’t look away from his supervisor’s piercing purple eyes. He was crumpling under the weight of failing to appease this authority.

“Why not? You fought in the first one didn’t you? We promoted you for that.” Gabriel’s facade of composure was slowly splintering. His brows pulled tightly over his nose.

“Yes, but…” Aziraphale shifted in the grip of the two angels holding his arms. “I’m not sure it was right then, and I don’t think it’s right now.” He whined. He hated that his eyes were tight and wet and that his bottom lip wobbled. He was on the brink of crying. This came quite out of nowhere. The world was ending, can’t anyone in Heaven see that? “We should be supporting the humans to make this decision themselves. Instead we’re...we’re....” He gulped desperately trying to bring moisture back into his fear-stricken mouth. “Warmongering.” 

Gabriel’s false-smile eyes dropped all the pretense and snapped to sharp daggers. Aziraphale wiggled in fright. He had never seen those angelic spheres brimming with outright malice, only sensed a change in the room. “ _You’re_ not sure it’s _right_ ? You? You _think_ our divine destiny isn’t right? Of course it’s right. Everything we do is right! We’re representatives of _the Right_ .” He marched up to Aziraphale, and breathed hotly in his face. Aziraphale squirmed. “You shouldn’t be an angel anymore, _thinking_ like that. Frankly, it’s disgusting. If you aren’t going to be a team player, no one is going to want you on their team. I certainly don’t. You’re fired, Aziraphale.”

Aziraphale stiffened instantly. “Wha-what?”

“We can’t deal with you currently. There is too much going on, but you can’t stay here. Your attitude will ruin morale. Thankfully, we have the perfect purgatory for you. You’ll find it familiar, I’m sure.” Gabriel’s returned smile was one of outright cruelty. “Get him a body, and send him back to Earth. Try not to discorporate this one or cast too many miracles, your well of abilities is officially dry."

The angels pinning Aziraphale’s arms, jostled him roughly, but he was absolutely shellshocked, unable to process the last few minutes. As he watched Gabriel’s sneering face as he was dragged away, a sudden unexpected fury rose within him. He tore his arms free of his tailcoat, stepped sharply to Gabriel, who was startled back, and stiff-lipped, slammed his palm into that arrogant, awful face. 

The angel guards caught up to him at just that moment, and snapped his arms painfully behind his back. Aziraphale didn’t wiggle, and his eyes couldn’t leave Gabriel’s, who simply wiped at the corner of his mouth with a thumb. His face twitched with rage.

“If I see you back up here before the war is over, you’re dead.”

* * *

Aziraphale had pulled his hand away ages ago. He has finished off the tequila mostly by himself and is now openly weeping. “I’m a complete and utter fool.” Aziraphale keens wetly unable to even glance in Crowley’s direction.

The emotions coursing through Crowley are a vortex of overwhelming pride and obscene wrath. Yet both are overshadowed. He wants desperately to comfort Aziraphale, and like anyone in love, often the heart bypasses the brain entirely. He hands a clean white handkerchief to Aziraphale, who takes it without a second thought to dab at his moisture stricken eyes.

“Oh drat.” A molten crack has opened beneath Crowley’s helhest, and has begun to pull. “Oh actual fucking hell!” He slithers off his horse onto Aziraphale’s in a desperate flurry. His helhest has begun to struggle and howl as if sucked into quicksand. In moments it’s gone. “Uhm, better run.”

Aziraphale ribs his beast up into a full sprint, his mind blanks. There is only one task ahead of him. It’s marked by a red line of fire on the horizon. He is going through the motions to protect what he has. Crowley’s arm has slipped around his middle, and the other is on his wing. He is watching the ground.

“Do you think we can run all the way there? To the Lake?” Crowley’s voice is so close to his ear. But it doesn’t phase Aziraphale. He’s wrapped up in himself, trying to get away. ‘Function.’ He pleads with himself. ‘Function. You’re an angel, you can function, right? You can do this simple thing.’

“It is possible. I’ve never pushed their stamina like that.” He doesn’t question if being anywhere near the Lake would stop Hell’s pursuit. There could be a chance, and any chance is better than none. They run for a long time. The hot air passing them in gusts, Crowley always looking down. 

“I never said it back... before…but I always thought of you as my best friend already, and I think there is more to it. I’d always wanted there to be anyway.” That sounds like an admission someone gives when their hope runs out. Crowley can’t keep it from his voice.

Aziraphale groans. He’s very involved in functioning. There are many things he would like to do if he was old Aziraphale. Maybe smile. Yes he would smile, and say something full of gentleness. As of now, he’s unable to dredge the words up, he grips Crowley’s arm wrapped around his waist.

Unfortunately, they gallop right into the thick of the human horde crowding around the Lake of Fire. The red on the horizon bright enough to cast long shadows on themselves and the huddled bodies. A lot of kicking and bucking and biting later with little speed maintained, Hell catches up.

“Get off the horse, angel.”

“No, no, why is everything like this?! Look, I’ll come with you.” Crowley pushes him off the horse. Aziraphale grapples for Crowley’s hands as he sinks quickly, a jagged ring of molten stone below. “I can’t lose you again. I can’t take it. I’ve lost everything! I love you.”

Crowley goes wide eyed. “Oh.” He doesn’t have a lot of time. “They’ll eat you alive down there. I’ll find a way back. Let go! Please.” But his hand is slipping anyway. The pull of Hell is stronger than immortal strength, and Crowley is gone. 

Aziraphale’s functionality abruptly abandons him, and what replaces it is coils and coils of anger, lanced with pain. “You stupid demon!” He screams to the ground, to the darkness, to the stumbling bodies. “You idiot! Get sucked down to Hell for what! A tissue?! To comfort me! Fuck!” He’s up and staggering through the bodies directionless, pushing them indiscriminately. He needs air or space, which aren’t things he needs at all as an angel. He’s out on the edge of the crowd, and he’s in full vengeful fury, eyes lit with heavenly fire. And he screams and he screams and his voice doesn’t tire because why would it, and there is absolutely nothing out there. The darkness swallows all, and no sound returns.

* * *

His eyes were blue fire then too, but hotter, the fires bigger. There was smoke curling the hairs at his temples. There was an unending wind whipping around him since he had returned to Earth. It had picked up little shards of debris. His white comet hair shivered in it. He had willed his wings black because why not, that’s what Crowley did. God hadn’t thrown him out, Divinity hadn’t been taken from him, but he was here regardless, here as a witness and no miracles to spare.

By this time in the Apocalypse, he saw the culling of one third of the humans, the dead fish, the first fires. It didn’t matter that many were destined for Heaven. They all screamed the same regardless of their goodness. Souls separated from human flesh and bone was always painful. He knew what it is like to get too attached to things one shouldn’t. They had his sympathy. The four horsemen were wickedly effective after the bombs fell, cutting down and hurting whoever. Soon they would become “in essence”. They wouldn’t physically have to lead the war. They would simply be. The angels and demons would take over. So in Aziraphale’s mind, it was now or never. He had come to Earth with one possession six thousand years ago, and he would be the one to keep it for the rest.

“That’s mine.” Aziraphale walked up to War. He pointed to the flaming sword. “And I’d like it back.”

War wore blood, and blood only. She had her crown made of bone and Aziraphale’s old flaming sword. Her horse was red and muscled like a pierced and still-twitching heart. The world’s end had revealed her true self. “An angel? You’re a bit early. Your time to feast on this world will come. Then the demons will suck the marrow, you know the rest.”

“I don’t care. I’d like my sword back.” He held out his palm.

She considered the man-shaped angel in front of her. She was almost at her largest, having recently come into her full concept, maturing. The horsemen didn’t have a responsibility to Angels or Demons. They were exclusively of their own unique management. In this way, she wasn’t sure she should be intimidated. Their jurisdictions had never been at odds before. “You’re kidding right?”

“I’m afraid not.” He had the nerve to flap his extended hand open and closed, a child’s gesture for ‘gimme’.

So War laughed. It sounded like the blitzkrieg. “You’re a funny little thing. You’ll have to take it from me. Pray that you won’t get cut.” She strikes out.

Aziraphale pursed his lips, and the wind around him spiraled faster. He reached into the ether and pulled out his halo, his other pairs of wings. He hadn’t been thinking much lately. Reacting was faster and had an edge of totality, in this case, surprise too. His crown of the Principality appeared in his hand. So as the sword pierced forward, he looped the crown over the tip and twisted. The blade caught on the daidem’s patterned edge. The sword bucked from War’s hand, and landed like coming home in Aziraphale’s grip. “Done and done I think.”

War whooped hotly. “Okay, color me impressed! Come on run me through then! I’m unarmed.”

“I’m sure you are never unarmed.” And he walked away. He had his sole possession. This wasn’t about a fight. It was about what he can hold, what he can touch, what he can keep for the rest of forever. 

War, however, pursued him relentlessly until she eventually faded into the world a concept without a presence.

* * *

The screaming guts Aziraphale quickly. At some point he sits down in the dirt, his eyes snuff out, and without the fire evaporating his tears, they come. He hasn’t cried this hard since the beginning of this all. He cups his face in his hands and covers himself with his wings. Each drop turns to blood before hitting the ground. Revelations is very specific about salt water at the end of the world. He thinks if he ever moved again it would be too soon. He cries for a long time. 

“Why are you crying?”

It’s definitely too soon to move. The fit has drained him of all his energy, but the asker can’t be ignored. Things on the Earth stopped speaking clear sentences ages ago. He wonders if it’s God asking him the same favor as Crowley now that he is gone. He lifts his wing.

It’s the opposite of God. It’s an eleven year old boy to be precise. He has glowing red eyes, smells of Evil, has a large black dog, and appears on the brink of tears himself. Low and behold, it’s the Antichrist. 

Aziraphale draws a sharp breath in. This isn’t what he expected at all. He’s shocked the boy hasn’t reverted to his demonic beast shape, and instead has preferred to stay in his human one. His angelic habits hiss blindly that it’s an elaborate trick meant to play on his empathy, and not to be swayed. But boy would have to be an incredible actor to look so painfully sad just to ensnare a half-fallen angel.

“I lost my best friend, and…” He wipes at his filthy cheeks, trying to regain an air of respectability. “The world is almost over. What’s your name?”

“Warlock. What’s your’s?”

“Aziraphale.”

“You’re an angel.” 

“You’re the Antichrist.”

“Why are you dressed like a cowboy? That’s a bit weird.”

“It’s a _style_ , okay. Why are you dressed like an eleven year old boy?”

And Aziraphale must have hit something sensitive, because the boy starts to cry. “Because I am an eleven year old boy!” Each long trail of tears transforming to blood somewhere on his sobbing face leaving red lines on his cheeks. The dog nuzzles under the child’s armpit attempting to comfort him. It growls at Aziraphale.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean anything by it. It’s been a very trying day. All I meant is that you aren’t what I expected.”

“Are you here to kill me? Throw me into the Lake of Fire?”

“No, no my dear boy. I’m here to suffer.” He says it aloud and it rings so painfully true. He puts his face back in his hands and groans. “Yes, I’m here to suffer.”

Warlock sniffs, whips at the bloody tears, and sits down with him. “Me too.”

Aziraphale glances at him. He raises an eyebrow.

“I did the wrong thing. Everyone said I could make a better world, and I did it wrong. This is worse than ever. There aren’t even other kids to play with. There is no green grass or seasons or food to eat. Nothing.” He rubs his red rimmed eyes as if they will begin leaking again shortly.

Aziraphale thinks of food, he thinks of apples. He thinks of the shiny red apple that Crowley pulled from his pocket and placed on the table, the restart button. He slams his hand into his forehead. “Hell’s bells and a bucket of blood! My friend! He has something for you!”

Warlock’s glowing pupils eye him. “Huh?” And a bit lower he mutters “a bucket of what?”

“My friend, he’s been taken back to Hell, but he has something for you. We were looking for you. Ah, I can’t believe I didn’t remember.” Here was the Antichrist, within arms reach, and so sympathetic, and here was Aziraphale apple-less, moron-more.

“Your friend is in Hell? We can just go there. That’s easy enough.”

Aziraphale starts to his knees. “What? Why?”

“Why not? I have nothing else to do. I’ve been bored for ages. You seem alright.”

“You sweet sweet child, you really aren’t what I expected at all.” 

“Alright, alright. Don’t get all sappy about it. Think of your friend, and we’ll go.”

In the corner of Aziraphale’s eyes are suddenly happy tears. It’s easy to pull the image of Crowley to his mind, red hair, yellow eyes, long limbed, completely unique. He nods to Warlock, and the pull of a miracle surrounds him. It’s been so long but he can hardly forget the sensation.

When he opens his eyes, he’s in a basement that has a fungal smell or perhaps an animal has died in the walls. Crowley is in front of him, slumped in what appears to be a broom closet. Aziraphale throws himself on him in a hectic hug. “Ah! Crowley! You’re okay!”

“Ow! Ow!” Crowley’s arms are strapped behind his back, and they are twisting uncomfortably under Aziraphale’s embrace. He’s not without scrapes and bruises either. Demon wounds have a way of sticking around on a body. “Aziraphale! You’re here!? How are you here?”

Aziraphale and Crowley lock eyes. It’s been awhile since Crowley has seen Aziraphale’s bright smile. He melts a little. ‘Wait’ His brain catches up, ‘This is hugging. We’re hugging.’

“I found the Antichrist. Well more like, he found me.” Exuberant pride bolsters his voice.

Crowley snaps his eyes from Aziraphale to the boy behind him. He’s got his arms around the hell hound’s neck, sunk deep into the black fur. “Hi.”

“Hi.” Crowley frowns. His restraints fall off. “Oh, I suppose I should say thank you.”

Warlock shrugs. “I’d be nice if you did. Aziraphale says you have something for me?” 

“Ah. Thank you. Right.” Crowley swallows deeply. His eyes are apologetic. “Well I did. But I’m afraid I lost it.” He says this more to Aziraphale then to the Antichrist.

“You did what?! Where?!” Aziraphale’s hug becomes a shake. 

“I don’t know! It wasn’t on me when I got here. Maybe while we ran, it fell out of my pocket.”

“Crowley.” Aziraphale grinds out, “That was perhaps hundreds of miles in the dark.”

“Yeah, I know.” He slumps over in Aziraphale grip, “I’ve gone and fucked up everything.” 

“Well this is lame.” The Antichrist grumps. “Aren’t you supposed to be like, good at stuff?” 

Aziraphale pales. “We’re completely sunk then.”

“Not completely, I’ve been locked in a broom closet, and I’ve been thinking.” An imagination is a terrible thing to waste, Crowley rarely does. “Why don’t we steal one of the seven bowls? There are what, two left then? I bet we can get up to Heaven, grab one of em, and hide them somewhere on Earth. The prime tossers won’t go down there to look. It’ll buy us some time. We can then comb the desert or whatever for however long we want.”

Aziraphale’s frown says it all, but he says it anyway. “That is a terrible idea.”

“Heyo! What’s your idea then? Wait until the end?”

“I’ll get you to Heaven.” The Antichrist interrupts. “I can’t go with you, but I’ll get you there.”

Crowley and Aziraphale both stare openly at the boy, then stare at each other. “Yeah, alright.” They both agree in unison, and it doesn’t take much for the boy to send them there.

Heaven is the same as it’s always been, bright white with too many windows, circulating air at the perfect temperature, polished cement and metal. Crowley is thankful that he kept his shades. Lord, it’s bright up there. They both scan their destination quickly. Conveniently, the Antichrist hasn’t just sent the pair to Heaven, he has sent the pair directly to where they need to be. 

The matching bowls are lined up along a window on matching pedestals. Each pedestal is numbered with explicit warnings and instructions. The first five in the row are empty, free of the liquids that caused the majority of the plagues to wipe clean the planet. The last two remaining are filled with dissimilar and strange fluids. It’s not really fluid at all. The Plagues shiver on the edge of understanding, taking on no real color or substance, but decidedly different from each other.

Aziraphale and Crowley take a moment to share in their mutual success. Although they really did little to get there themselves, they glance triumphantly at one another. 

“Nice kid.” Crowley smiles toothly. “Didn’t expect that.”

“I know, right? The world remains full of surprises.” Chuckles Aziraphale.

Crowley gestures to the Sixth Bowl, “You better do it. I probably can’t touch that. Gut feeling and all.” Aziraphale nods and wraps his hands around the edges of the dish.

“It’s heavy!” But he fails to notice that it is also very slippery. Free of the pedestal, the dish lists to the side. The strange held-material sloshes off balance. The bowl tilts from Aziraphale’s grip, and shatters to the floor. Crystalline fragments scatter room-wide, tinkling like a fallen chandelier.

“You broke it?!” Crowley screeches. An alarm suddenly blasts on. It sounds like celestial harmonies, but LOUD.

Aziraphale, kneeling over the epicenter, has begun gathering up pieces as if he could possibly reassemble it. Shaky fingers align two splinters among the thousands. “I didn’t break it! I can fix it!” In his panic, he snaps the broken bowl back together like a thunder clap. Despite his precious miracle, the bowl is empty. The strange fluid hasn’t filled it. It had evaporated like smoke as soon as the bowl shattered, and apparently, can’t be miracled back into existence. 

Crowley, one last brain cell firing in the expanse he sometimes called a brain, jerks his reptilian leg out, and kicks the last pillar. “Fuck it.” The seventh bowl, up on its pedestal, wobbles once and falls. It shatters similarly. The plague bleeds into the ground, gone in seconds. “Go out with a bang right?”

“Aaaaa! Crowley! Fucking Hell!” Aziraphale bellows. 

Crowley in a sprint, grabs Aziraphale by his ridiculous shirt bib. “Now we run!” And shoves him out the window. Crowley barrels out after him.

And they are falling at first. Crowley can’t resist remembering what it was like the last time he fell from Heaven. His mind blanks out, but his wings respond to the air without thought. After a moment or a few, he distantly hears Aziraphale calling out to him. “Crowley, please, wake up! I know this is hard for you but…!” Aziraphale is below him, flapping wildly, howling into the wind. “They are _all_ coming after us!” Crowley’s brain, alert and filled with a hollow encompassing terror, does the dumb thing and looks behind him. Not a few hundred, not a few thousand, but quite possibly, a few million angels are descending after them with spears. His mouth drops open and no sound comes out. He considers disassociating or passing out entirely. Aziraphale’s panic from below keeps him tethered to reality. “What are we going to do!? What are we going to do?!”

And Crowley, surprisingly, has another idea. There is only one thing he has ever trusted to get him anywhere safely and quickly and above the cloud line he can still perform demonic miracles free of Hell’s scrutiny. Not like they can come get him up here.

“Aziraphale.” He says too calmly. “Get in the car.” And that’s it. There is Crowley’s Bentley, back from the end of the world, winged and flying from the silver B of the hood ornament. It’s soaring alongside them.

Aziraphale, wide eyed, doesn’t ask a single question. He darts after it. Doors thrown open, Crowley sits, hits the gas, and Aziraphale buckles up. They soar away, gaining more and more distance from the descending battalions of Heaven’s angels. The cloud line approaching.

“Do you think...” Aziraphale gasps, looking out the back window of the Bentley. “Do you think they’re all after us?”

Crowley glances into the rear view mirror. “Dunno. I suppose now with the seventh bowl spilled, it’s time for the war.” He looks back to the cloud line, lip a squiggle.

Aziraphale sinks into his seat, a javelin whizzes past his window. His face is as pale as his own hair. The Bentley excellerates on. “How’d did we cock that up so, so badly?”

Crowley doesn’t mean to snort, but it bucks into his throat and out his mouth. The sound becomes a defiant chuckle. 

“This is no time to laugh!” But Aziraphale has caught it too. He is shivering with giggles. “Oh God, we are insane. Just insane. We’ve lost it.”

“Now’s the time. Armageddon and all.” It takes a long time for their laughter to settle. Both their nerves frayed beyond recognition. A silence descends on the car, heavy and tense. 

“What can we possibly do now?” Aziraphale whispers to no one particular. The despair in his voice is unsettling.

Crowley grits his teeth. He flips the radio on. Made in Heaven plays.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There you have it. Idiot land. Also Aziraphale is a bamf.


	3. White Hat

I love these two. It was a stroke of genius for me to put them together in the Garden of Eden hundreds of thousands of iterations ago. Put the two of them on anything the first time and the results will always be a surprise, and this is the special part, the results will always be repeatable. That is as long as I don’t muck up what happens around them. Anyone looking for perfection, this is a very helpful trait. For awhile I’ve been trying to get them together. I’ve never succeeded without their inevitable destruction, and I can’t have that. Crowley and Aziraphale together are one of the most predictable ways to get the world to restart. On one very notable attempt, I made Aziraphale the demon and Crowley the angel. They were both too heretical about their jobs, which was amusing at first, but I was almost worried that I’d ruined them. Lately I try not to mess with their relationship. I’d really like to see them be happy. They deserve it at this point. 

They’d have more time to figure it out if the Child can just make it past the Apocalypse. I think I’ve settled on the perfect solution. The humans had invented this card trick several versions back with three expertly shuffled cards and the trick is it’s impossible to follow what three cards are where at the end. I’ll do that, but with babies, and the Antichrist’s childhood will have the necessary spontaneity.

* * *

The Bentley plunges into the clouds, and for a moment all around them is the beauty of an unaffected sky. Silver lined cumulus float larger than anything, high above the desolation of the Earth. As they sink through, the clouds darken and darken and darken until they are plunged into the black that has become so familiar to them. The only light in the car comes from the blue of the radio light. In the cast color, both Aziraphale and Crowley settle back into the horrored awareness that they’ve failed in quite a few ways. No apple. No bowl. No Antichrist. Heaven and Hell both after them. The options have never been more narrow for them. The Bentley lights turn on, lighting their way to the ground.

“Why’d you kick the last bowl? It sped up our timetable quite a bit.” Aziraphale has twisted in his seat. Crowley’s eyes slide to the corners to get a glimpse of him. He’s looking a bit more like his old self, except for the dark rings under his eyes. Also the dirt, they are both covered in grime, very unlike the usual. Still Aziraphale’s seeking and expressive eyes have returned. Crowley swallows.

“I’m just done with it. My idea really was rubbish. We weren’t going to be able to leave with that dish as it was. Better to piss off some people on our way out.”

“Oh I’m sure we have.” Aziraphale draws a stuttering breath. “We should prepare to meet Gabriel.”

Crowley flashes a sharp toothed smile at that. “Counting on it actually.”

“It’s going to be messy.”

“Counting on that too.”

“Do we have a plan?”

“Do we ever?”

“No, Crowley, not _really_.” Aziraphale slumps into the seat.

“Let’s just show up and see what happens then.”

The Bentley’s lights reflect off the approaching ground. Crowley steers the car into a landing. It’s eerily smooth. The car hardly bounces despite the rattling that only comes from a hundred year old automobile. Screws twisting in the sockets. As soon as they touch down, he can feel the direction of the Lake of Fire, so he takes off that way. The world is flat. The seventh bowl’s earthquake has shook the Earth to pebbles. 

“Where are we going?”

“I’m going back to the Lake of Fire. We can at least find the kid again. Keep him away from the angels at the end of the war. He doesn’t deserve to die. Or give him some company before we all die. Take your pick.” 

Angelic trumpets sound, a military call that can be heard everywhere on the planet much like the bowl announcement. Above them, beams of light dissolve the black, and angels begin to enter the final battlefield.

“Oof, that’s not good.” Crowley hunches over the steering wheel to peer at the sky through the windshield.

“Uh Crowley, _please_ watch the...road!” 

Crowley swings his head down like a pendulum. In front of the Bentley are the once-shambling and now-militarized humans. Apparently with the onset of war, their passive natures have vanished, so the witless crowds are now wild-eyed aggressors running viciously in their direction. “Oh.”

Crowley revs the engine, and the Bentley’s wings unfurl. It takes flight just as the first onslaught reaches them, scratching and slobbering as the undercarriage passes inches from their gutting nails. The humans quickly unfocus and launch themselves at the descending angels, who cut through them with little regard for their souls.

They soar over the humans, flying their way into the direction of fire. To distance themselves from the terrible sound they make, the car glides a decent distance above the surging zombies. At this vantage point, the edge of the Lake of Fire is visible. The shores tower with wreathing yellow flames hundreds of feet high. When the Earth was alive, this “lake” was likely an ocean. It’s a gargantuan landmark. 

A bolt of lightning hits the car, and Gabriel is flying in front of them. He still wears his gray wool suit with a scarf. It’s a million degrees on Earth and _a scarf_. Tactless. His eyes are blue flame with centers of blistering purple. His six wings are white as a flood light. On his head is a crown of stars that shimmer like the spear and shield he carries. He snaps his fingers and the blasted car disintegrates. Crowley and Aziraphale unfurl their wings in the last moment and escape the ruined husk for the sky. The air is hot and electric. Below them, the humans froth with malice, and in front, Gabriel is armed for a fight.

Gabriel grins at the pair. “I was wondering when you’d slip up Aziraphale. I’ll admit it’s much further along than I thought. Good on you.” He’s alone. Uriel, Michael, and Sandalphone are terrorizing, or harmonizing, elsewhere. 

“Don’t you have better things to do Gabriel?” Although Aziraphale has mentally prepared for this, he had hoped to never see that face again, but everything hateful happens in the Apocalypse. “There is a war going on!”

“Nothing I’d rather do more, actually.”

“You probably are unaware, but we’re on a mission from God.” Aziraphale says as tease, as a hint that they are better than him.

“God?” Gabriel scrunches his face, “I mean, who cares? I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but God is a terrible manager. Hasn’t really participated in anything since the creation of the World, give or take a few disasters.”

Aziraphale’s jaw snaps shut, his prepared retort swallowed. The Archangel has never admitted to having such little faith. It punches the air out of angel. He can’t believe he ever listened to this person.

“If now is the time the Lord has decided to participate and with you two slackers, then I suppose I’ll learn shortly that I’m doomed. But somehow...I doubt that.” He spins his spear upright. “Arm yourselves.”

Aziraphale draws his sword and lights it. “Crowley, do you have something to defend yourself with?” Now that he thinks about it, he has never seen Crowley with anything resembling a weapon. Guilt flashes through him. At no point had he even considered that Crowley could be at a disadvantage in a fight. He’s always done so much with words and miracles alone.

Crowley rolls his eyes. “Yes, angel. I’m more than equipped. It’s just that violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.” He whips his hand through the air and a saber appears. From point to pommel, it’s a single twisted black serpent.

Aziraphale scrunches his face, “You are joking!”

“Must be, you are both super incompetent. Heard a bit about your demon boyfriend from Beelzebub.” Gabriel snears, but since he’s noticed both are armed, he strikes at Aziraphale. It’s a quick surprise jab, one aimed to draw blood. 

Aziraphale parries and ripostes in a single smooth motion. Some things are never unlearned. “I can’t believe you have a sword! I can’t believe you’ve read Asimov!” He bellows annoyed. He pulls away from Gabriel as the next blow pierces with more force. The spear’s reach is long. “What else have you hid from me?”

“I’ve always been a knight, sweet Principality. Not my fault you never asked my position.” Crowley sweeps his sword tip along and thrusts at Gabriel’s gray-clad calves. The shield comes down and the spear doubles back, swishing through the air. Crowley darts away.

Gabriel’s burning pupils glance from Aziraphale to Crowley and then back. “You two done yet? Yes? Good.” The next few attacks are more forceful. They are too brutal to properly parry and can’t be slapped away. Instead Aziraphale dodges and glides down the spear shaft to cut Gabriel’s arm. The shield comes up again. He is thrown away, tumbling through the air, but Crowley, meanwhile, has sped around his side to slip his blade under the ribcage. It glances off.

“Armor?!” Crowley shouts over the sound of wings flapping.

“Oh, didn’t you know. We’re at war.” Gabriel snaps his fingers, and the gray suit is replaced by the hard chest piece and pteruges skirt of Ancient Rome. “Humans and their style. Best part about this place. Or was anyway.” He flashes a grin at the two like they all agree that’s funny.

Crowley frowns at Aziraphale who frowns back. “Alright” And he launches another attack. The spear darts out, but he drops under and slashes Gabriel’s thigh. 

Aziraphale dealing with the shield. Slams his weight into it, pushes it flush to Gabriel’s chest, and attempts to strike him on the head. He nips his cheek.

Gabriel looks at his bleeding thigh, then to Crowley. In a blink, Crowley vanishes. Aziraphale sucks in a breath, glances to Gabriel, who smiles with all his teeth, and seeks Crowley’s presence. He finds his trail at a sulfur pit in Hell. He snaps himself to Crowley. Gabriel appears with them. “What Aziraphale, can’t fight this battle alone?”

“I’d rather not.”

Gabriel strikes at the ill-prepared Crowley. He pushes the attack away, but gets nicked. Gabriel snaps him away again, just as he attempts to counter attack. “Then I’ll have to take him out.”

The realization slams into Aziraphale. His anger crackles through him. He miracles to Crowley, who is back on Earth disoriented. They are in a part of the world the horde hasn’t touched yet. The ground is barren. The sky crackles with lightning of the nearby battle.

Gabriel follows them on another miracle, “We can do this forever.”

“Right.” Aziraphale brings out his additional wings, crown, and halo. His eyes ignite. “No more transporting us around then.” It’s a miracle, not a statement.

“Suit yourself.” And Gabriel strides forward, spear out but instead feints and punches Crowley in the face with his shield. Bloody, he reels back. Gabriel vanishes abruptly.

“He’s going after you.” Aziraphale growls.

“Cause I’m the fast one.” Crowley touches his impacted nose tenderly. His smile is bloody. From above, a foot collides with his back. He is crushed to the ground, pinned, and Gabriel makes to run him through. Gabriel’s spear strikes ground. Crowley materializes behind Aziraphale.

“No miracles for either of you!” Bites out Gabriel, and with a few majestic sweeps of his wings, he lifts off the ground. 

“I’m not part of your jurisdiction!” Crowley manifests a boulder over Gabriel. He nearly dodges but one wing gets crushed beneath the stone. The shield is caught as well and underneath the stone, buckles. He howls in pain.

“Crowley! What _about_ Hell?!”

“I’m fighting an Archangel, Aziraphale, think they are going to come collect me?”

Gabriel explodes the stone, drops the shield, and stalks towards them, both hands on the spear. He curves it and cracks the beam over Aziraphale’s head and withdraws to pierce. Crowley parries the strike aimed at the dazed angel. Gabriel grabs for Crowley’s wing and throws him away, fist full of black feathers. Gabriel’s spear rips through Crowley’s chest, and swings around with precision to repeat the strike on Aziraphale.

“Let there be light!” A blast of light flashes into Gabriel’s eyes. He winces and jabs blindly.

The light fades. Gabriel stumbles, a black blade has pierced through his neck. It’s sliced out. His wing is yanked back. “I hit you. You can’t miracle a wound like that.” Gabriel chokes around blood welling into his throat. Crowley deftly flicks the blood off his blade, completely uninjured. “Oh I see. Duplicate.“ Gabriel hauls his spear around, but it’s arch is halted.

Aziraphale has stepped on the spear’s shaft, forcing the tip into the ground. “Yield, Gabriel. You have a mortal wound.”

“Aw, no.” Crowley gripes.

Gabriel is applying pressure to his neck, and he is noticeably paler. “I have to say, _receiving_ mercy as an angel from an angel is a little odd.”

“I mean, have you ever..? Are you even familiar with it?" 

“Point taken. All I’m saying is,” Blood has overflowed his lip and trickles down his chin. “Is that It’s nice. I hope for your sake, you really are on a mission from God, your chances are limited without it.” And he shakily stands to look up at the blackness that once was the sky and departs in a crack of light much like how he arrived. 

“I can’t believe you just let him leave like that.”

“You can’t?”

“Okay I absolutely can, but damn angel, we had him on the ropes. What if he comes back, brings his friends?” 

“Then we’ll fight his friends.” Aziraphale cleans his blade with his fingers. There isn’t much to clean, he hardly struck him at all. Into the ether, he shifts his crown, halo, and extra wings. “I can’t believe it’s been over four thousand years and we can still surprise people with that maneuver.” 

“The For Your Eyes Only always lands a hit.”

“That’s what you’ve called it?” Aziraphale blanches.

“Shut up.”

“It’s a reference to something?” 

“Yes angel it’s a reference. Catch up.” Crowley huffs and diminishes his sword in a spark. “So one thing off the list. Next is find the kid.”

“The Antichrist is probably surrounded by those awful ghouls and demons right now. Trying to get him out seems unnecessary. Instead with the return of our miracles,” At this Aziraphale flexes his fingers, “we could send him a destination and meet him there. If he’s so inclined to leave his current situation that is.”

Crowley scoffs. “And what do you suggest?”

“Well,” Aziraphale flashes a simpering smile. “We could run away together.”

“ _Angel._ ” Crowley hates having his words twisted back at him about as much as he absolutely loves that expression on Aziraphale.

“Alpha Centauri?” 

Crowley’s mouth drops open. He’s so glad that Aziraphale’s bastard spirit has returned to it’s full pleasant splendor. There is only one possible answer to this question. “Yeah, let’s get out of here.” 

Aziraphale snaps his fingers, but nothing outside the ordinary happens. “Message sent!” And he prepares to snap again, but Crowley’s hand covers his own.

“Allow me.” Crowley transports them to Alpha Centauri. Before the Apocalypse, humans had speculated on the existence of planets around the star system. Now, there was not one single person left alive to consider the question. If they had the ability to get magically sent to the system, they’d have a better understanding that there are a good deal of planets around the three stars. Of course, they all have some whacky orbits, and can’t sustain life, but it doesn’t make them any less of a big deal. Crowley brings Aziraphale to one that shifts around Centauri A and Centauri B on a course similar to how a human would write infinity. The reappearance of a night sky filled with stars shakes them to the core. 

“I never could understand why she never put any people out here. Seems like a waste of good space.” Crowley mutters when his awe subsides. 

“I meant what I said earlier…” Aziraphale blurts out. His eyes flash from looking up at the return of the night sky to Crowley’s shades. He’s flushed, blue eyes shivering with emotion. “When you were getting pulled back to Hell.” 

Crowley can only lift an eyebrow. His mouth a crumpled line hovering closer to a smile than a frown. He leans a bit into Aziraphale’s space.

“I do...I love you. I’m glad I got to be here with you, finally. I should’ve said yes before all this—”

Crowley kisses him. His hand has slipped up his neck, and like a serpent twisting around a branch, has curled his spine closer to Aziraphale. He has removed his glasses, and clutches them in his hand still, so Aziraphale, wide eyed, can see the gentle sweep of Crowley’s eyelashes curl over his cheek.

Aziraphale clutches Crowley’s sharp shoulders like a prop to keep him standing. His eyes sink closed, and the kiss helps knead all the stress from his body. He makes a small sigh when Crowley eventually pulls away.

Crowley settles his hand on Aziraphale’s lower back, keeping them pressed together. “I’m glad you came here too. I knew you would accept my proposal eventually.” 

Aziraphale’s brow crinkles and he looks away. Crowley kisses his cheek. Aziraphale turns back to capture his mouth just in time. Their feathers ripple in the astral wind. The multiple suns of Alpha Centauri burn coolly in different hues across the sky.

Eventually they sit on the crest of a crater to await the AntiChrist.

Crowley takes Aziraphale’s hand. “This is okay. If the kid doesn’t show, this is probably how’d I want to go anyway.” The blush has yet to leave either of their faces. “With you, I mean.”

Aziraphale sighs and slumps onto Crowley’s jagged shoulder. “At least we have this. At least we have each other. Before, we truly had nothing.”

“Not before, before though? Remember wine? Art? Grass?”

“Oh, I can’t bear it. Please stop reminding me.” He buries his face into the demon’s neck. 

“What do you think restarting the universe even means?” 

“Is it a reincarnation thing?”

“I bet she’s trying to get it right. Otherwise why keep doing it again and again if each time was the same?”

“Maybe they keep getting better.”

“Yeah that must be it.”

“I wonder if people get removed?”

“Hmm?”

“I said, I wonder if people get removed. As in, they didn’t make the world better in the previous version, so they aren’t included in the next one.”

“Oh yeah, maybe, I suppose.”

Aziraphale bites his thumbnail.

“I wonder why bad things happen again at all actually. Like how many times do you think God has seen Jesus die or the Ark save the animals? Kind of sick really. Sadist-like. What’s the motivation? Makes you wonder about all the other reboots. Like how many times have we done this.” He waves a hand back and forth between him and Aziraphale. “Maybe we think this is really off the cusp but it’s the only way the world has ever restarted.” He laughs at that.

“I hate to remind you Crowley, but it’s almost the end and we don’t have the apple or the Antichrist. I doubt that.”

“It’s not over til it’s over.”

And like he’s on a schedule, the Antichrist pops in. “I got your message!”

Aziraphale physically startles, jerking out of his seat like a fish out of water. “Oh hello there!”

“I found something weird. It feels important, and like it’s yours.” And from his pocket, he produces a lovely red apple. “I wanted to eat it, but its...off.”

Aziraphale snatches it suddenly. “Oh yes, of course. Let me just get rid of this.” And he unfurls his wings, and launches into the sky.

“Angel?!” Screeches Crowley, bordering on a new, higher level of strangled panic. “Just a moment kid.” And Crowley flexes out his wings and blasts off. Aziraphale has a head start, but Crowley is fast. He catches up within minutes.

Crowley latches onto Aziraphale’s ankle. “Aziraphale, what the hell?! Where are you going?!” They beat their wings furiously in opposite directions, but Crowley claws his way up Aziraphale’s legs. When they are face to face, Crowley hisses. “What are you doing? We have to restart the world!”

“Crowley! Let me go! What if we don’t exist in the next world?! What then!” Crowley freezes. Aziraphale is on the brink of tears. “What if one of us is omitted? What if we don’t meet on the next Earth at all?”

“Aziraphale. Let’s land. Talk this out for a moment. Would you do that for me?” The angel looks away, back at the sky, as if considering whether he can shake off Crowley’s grip. After everything that’s happened to them, he doesn’t actually want to escape Crowley, quite the opposite. He nods.

They alight gentle onto the edge of a plateau, soft powder puffs up under their feet. Crowley circles Aziraphale wrist with a hand as to keep him from escaping again. Aziraphale clutches the apple. 

Crowley starts first, “Let’s try this again. You think in the reboot, one or both of us won’t exist?”

“It’s a possibility isn’t it?” Aziraphale doesn’t want to keep the pleading from his voice. “Who knows what’s going to happen after this world ends? In this world, even if it’s awful, we have each other.”

Crowley can’t keep the pain from his face. “Angel. Angel, this isn’t— What this is, it isn’t a world. This is the end. This is the slow, merciless, awful end." 

Tears roll down Aziraphale’s dust-smeared face leaving tracks. “But we have each other!” It’s a screech and than a strangled wrasp, “We could lose everything. Here we have each other...for awhile at least. It’s not great by any means but it’s something instead of...nothing.”

“Angel,” Crowley’s throat bobs, “I love you.” He closes his eyes, collects himself. “I love you so much, but this isn’t..I want...I want a chance to see you happy. I want to be able to take you out to dinner and see your face light up about a book or a crepe. Or see you through each season or each century, see you change that little bit. I want to see you for the first time again up on Eden’s wall. I want to drink wine with you in the bookshop and convince you into foiling my wiles.” 

He reaches up to cradle Aziraphale face and wipe the muddy streaks away. “We can’t be here forever, but I want forever. I want to indulge you on this, I really do. Stay here on Alpha Centauri until the universe dies with you kissing me.” He cups Aziraphale’s face with both hands. Aziraphale presses their lips together at Crowley’s suggestion, but he break away, his eyebrows slam down.

“But...But I can’t. I’d like the opportunity to love you in a thousand life times more, a million life times more. Maybe one of them, we’ll get together, and the world won’t end. I don’t like God very much, but what happened to your faith? I think we’ll be in the next universe, and if not, this is a good one to go out on. I won’t take the Apple from you. I don’t have the heart for it. You’re the good one after all. I’m sure you know what’s best.” 

Aziraphale considers the apple. Considers Crowley. They are both an absolute mess. Dirty. Broken. In love, yes, but the world is over. Alpha Centauri is beautiful, but it’s like picking out a burial plot before dying. What of eternity? Are these last moments in space, experiencing this mutual love with Crowley, so important because of their solidity, because it’s what he has now? For the first time in a very long while, he considers the world before the Apocalypse. He wants to sit down on a sofa, have a cut of cocoa, and read a book. He distantly thinks about crepes in France he was almost discorporated for. He wants to slip one of Crowley’s plant’s leaves through his fingers. Feel the crisp spring sun on his face, see the sun in Crowley’s eyes. Can he trust that the ineffable plan includes him, includes Crowley? That it allows them to experience these things again, all these tiny pleasures, these tiny things to love? 

The hand that held the apple so tightly loosens and lowers shaking. The empty hand has pulled Crowley into a final kiss. Crowley can feel Aziraphale steel himself. His spine straightens. “You’re right of course. How could I be so-sooo blind? So faithless. The possible opportunity to see you forever is far more tempting than waiting around here. Even if...” He doesn’t finish. He kisses him one last time quickly, smiles ever so hopefully. “Let’s go back.” 

Together they fly back towards the Antichrist. He is where they left him, just kicking a stone around for his hellhound to chase after.

“Sorry about the delay, I had a momentary lapse of judgement.” Aziraphale hopes his smile is reassuring and confident.

Warlock shrugs as if to say, ‘what are morals now’. 

Aziraphale extends the apple. “But this is actually for you.”

Warlock looks from the angel to the demon and then back. “What is it? Why?” His flaming eyes suspicious but prickling with a curious interest. 

“If you eat it, you’ll get another chance to make a better world. I know this one didn’t end up the way you expected.”

“A better world? But this is the world’s destiny? It’ll always end up like this.” 

“That’s up to you isn’t it. Destiny is a bit tricky like that. Wouldn’t you chance it?”

Warlock taps his chin. “Yeah, I guess I would.” It wasn’t much of a risk for him after all. If they all end up here again, it’s not like he didn’t try. He reaches out and plucks the apple from Aziraphale’s outstretched hand. The bite he takes is a sharp snap.

The universe collapses like a house of cards. There isn’t any pain, no shock and awe. Just curtains. A single being is left in void to clap.

* * *

  
And the universe reboots. Fans kick back on. A server spins menacingly in the back room. Lights blink on in the dark places of a blank slate. I crack my knuckles. I have the perfect plan this time. There is no way this time the Apocalypse will happen. So time begins. All the angels are created in heaven and some are kicked out. An angel and a demon stand in a garden. They are talking like they’ve just met. History happens. Agnes Nutter (new addition) has precise and accurate predictions that halt the apocalypse and one book survives. Three hundred years later, Crowley (altered) picks up the Antichrist to bring to the Chattering Nuns. He encounters Mr. Young (addition) outside smoking a pipe and gets incorrect information. A kind of card trick, but with babies, occurs. Eleven years later, Aziraphale returns to Heaven body-less only to encounter a Quartermaster (addition) and not Gabriel (altered). And this time, friends, this time, the apocalypse doesn’t happen, because I get it right. _I get it right._ But now isn’t the time for celebration! Now! Finally! Onto phase 3.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's all folks! I know this isn't the norm of what you're here in this fandom for, but of all my fanfics, this was the most fun to write and the biggest challenge for me. It's not exactly my most popular, so thanks for indulging me.


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